Frost
by Gumnut
Summary: Sometimes you can't be the one who makes the sacrifice.


Frost  
By Gumnut  
19 Dec 2004

It had been days.

He stumbled through the cold, the ground littered with the corpses of tortured plants that crumpled beneath his feet at every step. The air burnt his lungs; leeching the moisture from his body only to condense it in a crust that lined his cracked and peeling lips.

Pain was a memory.

The cold had stolen feeling and all that was left was thought.

And his mission.

He had told him not to go. He had ordered him not to go.

But he still went.

It was the nature of him.

Daniel Jackson had a determination that drove him forward, despite everything, and god forbid should anyone get in his way.

-------------------

"Goddamnit, Daniel!" The silence in the tent had been sudden, a pair of stubborn but startled eyes boring into his own. He didn't care. "You can't!"

"I can and I will." Daniel looked away, his gaze catching little but empty air. "I can make it there in half the time it would take for me to carry you and I have the cold weather gear. Hey, I'll be back with Janet and her team before you know it."

His stomach rebelled again and O'Neill had to grit his teeth to stop himself from groaning. He simply trembled instead, his voice hissing in pain. "It's not worth the risk."

Daniel caught his gaze with a glare. "Yes, you are."

O'Neill's breath caught in his throat, his voice frozen. Daniel gave him one last determined look before turning and passing through the door, the tent flap falling behind him.

Jack stared at the tanned leather as the truth tumbled from his lips, his breath steaming in the cold air.

"No. No, I'm not."

And now he had to follow.

--------------------

It had been days.

The ground wasn't white. It was too dry for snow, the only moisture a cloud of exhaled breath that taunted him with its fleeting warmth before it dissipated.

He had to find him.

He shouldn't have let him go. Damnit! It should have been him!

"Daniel!" His voice cracked, his vocal chords brittle. Goddamnit! The grey rocks stared back at him silently.

It should have been him.

But he was the one who had been injured.

-------------------

"Jack!" The voice came from a distance. "Jack!" Somebody caught him before he even realised he was falling.

There was pain.

"Jack, can you hear me?" Daniel?

Then followed a mish mash of unintelligible words, and Jack vaguely realised the archaeologist was speaking in the language of the natives. Useful talent, that.

He was lifted and he felt like he was floating. Something warm was wrapped around him.

There was yelling. Daniel was speaking Klingon, he had to be. Scotty, beam me up.

Damn Teal'c and his science fiction fetish, anyway.

"Jack!" That voice again, urgent, determined. This time he chose to open his eyes.

Daniel's face hovered over him, his outline wavering. "D-aniel?"

"Jack, how are you feeling?"

O'Neill frowned. One of Daniel's eyebrows wriggled across the archaeologist's forehead before shimmying down his nose and jumping off the end. Jack flinched, anticipating it landing on his face, but it didn't.

He blinked, his stomach twitching.

"I…" He shuddered. "I'm going to puke."

And he did.

------------------

"Daniel!"

Daniel, please.

The gate was in sight now. A lonely ring of metal surrounded by a ring of stones. Daniel was not there.

"Daniel!"

Something caught his foot and he stumbled, his pack shifting on his back and pushing him to the ground. He bit dust.

Damn himself to hell.

He closed his eyes for a moment, his lashes brushing the cold dirt. He had to move, or he would freeze.

Like Daniel.

He forced his arms to the ground and pushed off, forcing himself to stagger to his feet. "Daniel!"

What was the point? He couldn't even hear himself.

-----------------

"You've been poisoned."

"What?" It was hard to concentrate.

"Jack, leefta poison. These people use it for hunting. You were shot. It was an accident."

Accident? The sound of children playing.

"Accident?" Someone touched his arm and he flinched.

"I'm going back to the SGC to get help."

"Daniel-"

"I know what you are going to say."

And he did.

But he still hadn't listened.

------------------

He found him.

Twenty metres to the east of the stargate. He had been so close.

But not close enough.

"Daniel!"

No response.

He hadn't expected one, but the lack of it still hurt.

"Daniel?"

He lay like a discarded doll, his limbs bent awkwardly, his eyes staring.

He hadn't had a chance. The moment the chill weather had moved in, it would have been difficult for the both of them to return to the gate. They had planned to wait. The chief of the camp advising them that the cold snap usually only lasted a matter of days, sometimes a week. It was so severe, the camp went to ground, almost hibernating. With good reason.

But with Jack's illness.

He cursed himself again.

Daniel hadn't had a chance.

--------------------

"O'Neill." The voice was as unfamiliar to Jack as the word was to the speaker. He opened his eyes to find the chief's son kneeling at his side. At the spinning of the room, his stomach continued to protest, his body trembling.

"O'Neill, sorry, panuchucka taken Daniel." The man seemed distressed and apologetic all in one. Jack's heart froze.

"Panuchucka?" He stared at the young boy he had thrown from the path of the dart that had put him where he now was. "What?"

English was the tongue of the gods here. The people knew a little, but spoke it rarely. "Storm."

Storm?

Jack reached for the furs covering him, but Tapu restrained his hand. "Nothing you can do." The expression on his face spoke volumes.

"No." O'Neill forced the covers from him and staggered to his feet, prevented from falling only by a strong hand. He wobbled towards the tent flap, and, shoving it aside, stared off in the direction of the Stargate, a forbidden zone for the people of this tribe. Daniel…

Once he saw what he had to see, he realised Tapu was right. There was nothing he could do.

-------------------

The dust storm had been huge, a frigid wall of powdered tundra that marched across the plain, wrapping the stargate in its turbulent darkness. The village had been protected in the little valley, a now obvious reason for its locality, but the plain had been vulnerable.

And Daniel had been on the plain.

There was nothing he could do, but illness or no, he had stumbled out of that encampment as soon as he could put one foot in front of the other.

Because no one had come for him…and that simple fact chilled him more than the frigid weather ever could.

Daniel?

He pulled a glove off his hand, ignoring the bitter cold, and reached out to touch the pale skin at Daniel's neck.

It was colder than the air.

No pulse.

No movement.

Just a thin layer of frost.

Blue eyes can be so warm where there's life.

They are cold and empty where there is none.

-----------------

He would remember later the sound of the wormhole, but at the time it had not registered. Nor had he paid any attention to the sound of his name. It took the touch of a warm hand reaching to move his from Daniel's coat to shake him out of it.

"Colonel?"

Blonde hair.

And then the world had tilted sideways and departed for a while.

-----------------

"Jack?"

Huh?

"Jack, it's time to wake up."

It is?

Sing-song voice. "Jaaaaaaaaaaaack."

Oh god.

"Jacketty, jacketty-jack. Yoohooooo, Jaaaaaack."

"For crying out loud, Daniel, don't you ever shut up!"

He opened his eyes, expecting to see Daniel standing at the side of his bed as what was usual in these situations, but was surprised to find him missing. "Daniel?"

"Over here." He turned his head to find the archaeologist in the bed next to him. He was pale, but he had a smile on his face nonetheless. He blinked, and for a moment the blue gaze caught his. His heart froze.

"Daniel-"

"I'm fine, Jack. Janet caught me in time."

"But-" His memory screamed at him.

The archaeologist simply smiled. "We both made it."

For a moment something inside Jack welled up and he found his throat clogged and unable to speak. Daniel just stared at him quietly, waiting, the dark circles under his eyes dimmed by the smile on his face. Words suddenly weren't needed.

Embarrassed, he turned to look up at the ceiling. "Daniel, go to sleep, you look like crap."

"I'm not the only one."

O'Neill darted a glare in the archaeologist's direction, but for a moment was caught by the simple sight of seeing him alive and well. The warm air of the base air conditioner played with Daniel's hair and the younger man smiled at him once more before turning onto his back, for once in his life doing as he was told.

Jack didn't know how it had happened, but they were both here.

They had survived once again.

It was pure pleasure to be warm. O'Neill rolled onto his side, allowing himself the reassuring sight of a gently snoring Daniel Jackson.

O'Neill blinked, his stomach suddenly knotting into a painful lump.

Daniel was snoring.

And above him his breath condensed into a slowly dissipating, icy-white cloud.

---------------------  
FIN.


End file.
